How Islam reached the Somalis: the coast, the traders and the teachers

In short

There is no single date when the Somalis became Muslim. The sources describe a long process: very early contact across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, Muslim trading towns on the coast, and then centuries of teachers moving inland. The record below separates tradition, written sources and archaeology, and says which is which.

The tradition: the first hijra

In about 613 to 615, a small group of the Prophet Muhammad's followers fled persecution in Mecca and crossed the Red Sea to the Christian kingdom of Aksum, in today's Eritrea and Ethiopia. Islamic sources call its king the Negus (an-Najashi) and say he protected them (Migration to Abyssinia, Wikipedia). Aksum lay next to the Somali lands, and the Library of Congress country study says Islam was "probably brought to Somalia by early followers of the Prophet who sought refuge from persecution in Mecca" (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study, 1992).

Local tradition in Zeila says the first Muslims built the Masjid al-Qiblatayn, the "mosque of the two qiblas", in the Prophet's lifetime. Its oldest remains are undated, and archaeologists say more digging is needed (Masjid al-Qiblatayn, Zeila, Wikipedia, citing Insoll 2020 and Fauvelle-Aymar 2011). The same article notes that some scholars date the Islamisation of the region as late as the 1200s and 1300s, while others put it earlier.

The first written record

In the late 800s the Arab geographer al-Ya'qubi wrote that Muslims were living along the northern Somali coast (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing the Encyclopedia Americana). The Library of Congress study also names Persian and Arab merchants and seamen who "founded settlements along the Somali coast 1,000 or more years ago" (Library of Congress, 1992).

On the southern coast, Mogadishu's oldest dated mosque inscriptions come from the 1200s. When the traveller Ibn Battuta visited in 1331, Mogadishu had a Muslim sultan, a judge (qadi) and scholars of law. See the Somali coast towns, 1331 to 1586.

Inland: teachers and holy men

Islam moved from the ports to the herders and farmers through people, not armies alone. Somali tradition credits several sheikhs with spreading it, including Aw Barkhadle, Aw Qutub, Aw Cismaan Fiqi Cumar ("Garweyne") and Aw Cismaan Xasan bin Cakaabir (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Mohamed-Abdi, Histoire des croyances en Somalie, 1992).

Aw Barkhadle ("Blessed Father"), also called Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn, is remembered as a scholar based near Zeila. Oral tradition says he came from Arabia; the archaeologist Sada Mire recorded legends of "an Arabian sheikh" who came to the place once called Dogor, now named Aw-Barkhadle after him. The Italian scholar Enrico Cerulli found him named in the Harar manuscripts (Yusuf bin Ahmad al-Kawneyn, Wikipedia). He is also credited with devising Somali names for the Arabic vowel signs, the root of the "wadaad's writing" used to write Somali in Arabic letters (same article, citing Laitin, Politics, Language and Thought, p. 85). See Aw Barkhadle.

Many lineages trace their founder to an Arabian sheikh who married into local families. Sheikh Isaaq is said to have crossed from Arabia in the 900s or 1000s, settled at Maydh and fathered the eight sons from whom the Isaaq descend (Ishaaq bin Ahmed, Wikipedia, citing Lewis and the Library of Congress). Similar traditions exist for Sheikh Daarood and others. Scholars differ on how to read them. See why almost every Somali is Muslim.

In the countryside, each community came to have a wadaad, a man of religion who taught, led prayers, wrote documents and settled disputes by religious law (Library of Congress, 1992).

Somali scholars abroad: al-Zayla'i and the Cairo hostel

By the 1300s, scholars from the Somali coast were known across the Muslim world under the name al-Zayla'i ("from Zeila"). Uthman ibn Ali al-Zayla'i (died 1342) settled in Cairo and studied with other Somali students at the Riwaq al-Zayla'i, a hostel for students from Zeila at al-Azhar. He wrote a four-volume commentary on Hanafi law, Tabyin al-Haqa'iq (Al-Zayla'i, Wikipedia, citing Mukhtar, Arabic Sources on Somalia, 1987). A research paper traces how students from the Horn formed one of al-Azhar's first student communities (Abyssinia at al-Azhar: Muslim Students from the Horn of Africa in Late Medieval Cairo, AfricArXiv).

The Muslim states

From the late 1200s, Muslim sultanates ruled the trade routes inland from Zeila: first Ifat, then Adal, with later capitals at Dakkar and Harar (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Lewis and Briggs). On the southern coast, Mogadishu and later the Ajuran ruled. These states built mosques, kept judges and tied the Somali lands to Arabia, Egypt and India. See the medieval Somali states, 1300s to 1700s.

The Sufi wave, from 1500

In 1503, Sharif Abu Bakr al-Aydarus of Aden is said to have brought the Qadiriyya Sufi order into the Horn (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Mohamed, Sufi poetry in Somali, 1977). The Library of Congress study says Sufi orders appeared in Somali towns in the 1400s and "rapidly became a revitalizing force" (Library of Congress, 1992). In the 1800s new orders spread far into the countryside. See the Sufi orders in Somalia.

Which school of law

Somalis follow the Sunni branch of Islam and mostly the Shafi'i school of law, named after Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (767 to 820) (Library of Congress, 1992).

Read further

• Mohamed Haji Mukhtar, Arabic Sources on Somalia (African Studies Association, 1987).
• J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford University Press, 1952), which covers the Somali lands.
• Islam in Somalia: faith, the Sufi orders and religion in law.